A year ago, the 49ers took defensive lineman Kentwan Balmer in the first round of the draft. This year, they selected Ricky Jean-Francois in the seventh round. Neither will be in the starting lineup Sunday against the Tennessee Titans, but both will be in uniform.

Today, I spoke to Jean-Francois for a podcast:

I asked Raye today about the spread offense and the fact that the run game has not been consistently successful this season. The 49ers are not going to become a "spread" team. But Raye said there might be more of those elements added to the team's offense as the season progresses.

That's the matchup Sunday at the 'Stick when the Titans visit to play the 49ers. Young and Smith are former high draft picks who lost their starting jobs for various reasons.

Now, both are trying to remake their careers with their original teams. Both made their first starts of the season a week ago.

Young, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2006 draft, lost his starting job to Kerry Collins. With mostly Collins at the controls, the Titans went 13-3 but lost in the first round of the playoffs.

But when Young was playing, the Titans have always been effective. In fact, Young's regular-season record as a starter is now 19-11 with last week's 30-13 victory over the Jaguars. (It didn't hurt matters that running back Chris Johnson gained 228 yards on 24 rushes).

"As I told our team this morning, this is a team that we know nothing about," Fisher said this morning a handful of Bay Area newspaper reporters during the weekly conference call with the opposing coach.

He spoke in vague terms about the coaches not having exposure to the players and Alex Smith not having exposure to the spread offense.

Then, I spoke to Smith about it, and I think I have a better idea of what Singletary meant.

Well, the future has arrived.

Brown is set to take over at left cornerback for Nate Clements because the 49ers' coaches believe he matches up better against the Indianapolis Colts' receivers. The Colts use a lot of three-receiver sets, so Clements will probably be on the field for most of the game, too.

In all likelihood, veteran Dre' Bly will be the 49ers' fourth cornerback on Sunday.

Rookie outside linebacker Diyral Briggs earned his spot on the 49ers' 53-man roster this week the old-fashioned way: He was promoted from the practice squad.

We join this conversation in the middle as Briggs was talking about his late start playing football. He said he thought he was the "next Michael Jordan" until he was talked into playing football as a junior in high school.

The 49ers' two-minute offense against the Houston Texans was a little rough. OK, it was more than just a little rough.

Backup quarterback Alex Smith had not run a two-minute drill in practice since as far back as the third exhibition game. Those reps go to the starting QB. And Michael Crabtree was learning on the fly when the 49ers were in a situation in which they had one last chance to send the game into overtime - or perhaps win it.

First, let's go to the audio. Here's Michael Crabtree's session with reporters from today:

Today, I looked at the standings and schedule. Then, I came to a conclusion: The 49ers better get to work in a hurry.